The Nike Cup: Gully cricketers to take on the Indian national team

Tennis-ball cricket. Few joys of sport are as satisfying as the sweet thwack of a cricket bat hitting neon green fuzz and sending it soaring through the air. 

The bowler turns around in sheer dismay, fielders go slack-jawed and the neighborhood chicas suddenly know your name.

It's all good.

At least until that airborne fuzzy projectile goes crashing through some neighbor's sliding windows, incurring wrath, invective and an unaffordable window repair bill.

If you're a die-hard fan you might prefer the red cherry ball and pristine whites on a dusty cricket field that look like the "before" picture in a washing powder commercial. 

The rest of live and breathe for the joys, and terrors, of tennis-ball gully cricket in Mumbai.

Eight overs a side, knock-out style

At a time when the average Indian is ambivalent about loyalties to national or IPL teams, it was only a matter of time before an enterprising sponsor saw fit to bring the "best of the best" in gully cricket up against players considered good enough to represent our cricket-mad nation.

Wouldn't it be cool if some backyard David slew a national team Goliath on the playing field? That's the premise behind The Nike Cup, which launches on a to-be-determined date in November.

Key rules (for the entire list, visit the official website):

Twelve-member teams; eight players, four substitutes
Eight overs a side
Knock-out style tournament
Two overs per bowler
No bouncers
A wide or a no-ball is four runs
No fielding restrictions, but a captain cannot place all his fielders on one side only
Innings ends at the fall of the seventh wicket
Players are between 16 and 22 years old.

Games are expected to run for a tidy one-and-a-half hours. Could these become the desi precursor to streetball-style basketball tournaments popular around the world.

500 teams compete

Organizers expect more than 500 teams to register. Apart from the opportunity to play against members of the Indian cricket team, the organizer's website states that "there will be a number of prizes to be won along the way in the tournament."

Think you can put together a 12-member Mumbai team that can take on the best criketers in the country? Register online or call +91 966 447 8803 before October 27, 2010.

A final reason to believe that The Nike Cup might just become a sensation -- LBW is not considered a valid form of dismissal. Finally!